The Architect DM: On Dungeons
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the iconic “Dungeon” concept that many of us think of when we think of it in the context of Dungeons & Dragons. Also because only a month or two ago Dave wrapped up his 4E run through the Temple of Elemental Evil with custom mechanics to add to the “large dungeon crawl” feel of the adventures. Now I find my own campaign on the verge of the epic tier (the characters are currently level 19/20), and I am beginning to brainstorm a series of elemental dungeons that they will have to go through as a form of the Temple of Elemental Evil now fractured and embodied in five separate temples. Yes, I loved The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and I plan on stealing liberally from it.
My first inclination when thinking about the classic dungeon is to envision a many of the old D&D module dungeon maps, or even some of the newer ones from modules, and for the most part the style of dungeon that is represented enrages me more than it interests me. I feel that many classic D&D dungeons seem to be embodied by hap-hazard and random design that appears as if it was put together by a child. I will be the first to say that there is a time and a place for that style of design, and that it is not always a bad thing, but I’ve seen more than a handful of dungeons designed in that style which leads me to believe that it is a style some people purposefully apply to their “classic dungeons”. I believe designing a standard dungeon in that style is a big mistake.
I began to address this topic a month ago when I discussed Negative Space in Dungeons, but at the time I kept my thoughts focused on the idea of having space the your players can’t occupy to add differentiation into a dungeon. This post is about a higher concept level of design but is grounded in the same ideas.
Design with Purpose and Style
Let’s face it, the D&D dungeon you’re looking at has been designed by someone who set out to design a dungeon for the specific purpose of it being used in a game of D&D. I believe this is why we see the kind of nonsensical dungeon that feels so “classic”, because the design mindset used is that of making it appear as if the dungeon was not designed by a person setting out to design a D&D dungeon. The intent has completely eroded over the years so that now it is painfully obvious when you’re looking at a dungeon that can be described as stereotypically “D&D” in design. [Read the rest of this article]
Week 4: I Have Lost Six Dungeon Pounds
This week will be my D&D group’s fourth session. I’m starting to get the lay of the land a little better. I’ve learned that a plot won’t burst into flames if not kept on the rails the entire session. I’ve also learned that tacking it down in a couple of spots sure won’t hurt, and drawing a path in the dirt with a stick where you might like it to go isn’t such a bad thing. I decided to go back to my first article about starting a gaming group and look at the things I was concerned about with a few sessions under my belt.
- Music
I keep planning to try it, but every session I remember to do it as everyone is walking out the door. I think I am going to list out my encounters – combat and otherwise – on a sheet of paper along with a track to play. I haven’t been using a computer for anything (aside from Kmonster on my phone), so keeping Grooveshark open on my tablet with all tracks one press away shouldn’t get in my way much. Who knows if it will be awesome or annoying? Probably never me. I anticipate serially forgetting about this for at least another six or seven months. - Initiative
I’ve been writing out the initiative order on a sheet of paper, trying to guess based on their rolls how much space to leave on the rows above and below. This is clunky, I don’t like it much, but to be honest it’s not really getting in my way too much. I plan to get some index cards this week to try, having the PCs write down their defenses, hit points and bloodied value, and other info on them. Then I’ll make enemy cards and combat order should be much simplified. - Bloodthirst
I haven’t once wanted to kill a PC. Truth be told, I don’t really like combat that much. It’s not really a surprise to me, I used to wish the combats were over so I could roleplay some more when I was a player. I’ve caught myself wanting to halve an enemy’s hit points just to get things over with a couple of times. Some of my players are really into combat, so I’m going to avoid that. - Better DMing Through Technology
Maybe I’m just oldschool. Maybe I’m not using the right tools. But, as I said before, I hardly use any tech at all in the actual running of my game – certainly nothing I have to enter info into. I don’t have to fight notebook paper to record something really fast. I don’t have to open the right window, or enter things in any particular format. I scribble something down, possibly circling it. This surprises me a lot. I was half-expecting to look like something out of freaking Neuromancer while running my game – sitting motionless, speaking to my players only via voice synthesis, and updating a digital battle map. With my brain waves. I feel like a hippie or a luddite or something. - Frequency
We’ve had to swap weeks a couple of times, and last week’s board game “D&D off-week” night found every last person with a scheduling conflict. Overall, though, I think we’re proving somewhat flexible. One of our group has his son’s soccer practice to go to on our D&D nights for the next month, so we’ll be doing some dancing around that. Keeping him in every week during this might not happen, but I think it’s safe to say we’ll be playing. - Expectations
This has probably been the hardest to bear of the lot. You’d think after blogging in one form or another for nearly a decade would give me immunity from worrying that people will think what I come up with is stupid, but it’s more nerve-wracking for me when the people you’ll be attempting to entertain for the evening are mere feet away from you for hours on end. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun. I love it. But it’s making those little insidious self-doubt demons come out to have a picnic in my brain a lot more than I’d like. They make me second-guess the story I’m writing and bring out my Anxiety-Fueled Perfectionist who doesn’t write things other people understand (in a bad way). They make me want to procrastinate. They make me worry I will be the D&D equivalent of Forever Alone. They must die.
It’s a little different than where I expected to be at this point, but I feel like I’m getting better and people are having a decent time. Now I have different concerns and goals to put into bullet points:
- Player Engagement
I have some players new to D&D who are somewhat shy at the table. I want to try to get them out of their shells. I realize there are a lot of different types of people, and that means there are also a lot of different types of players. This also inevitably means some won’t like the things I do, so I can’t just fire up the Master Roleplaying Computer and determine their optimal RP algorithm. Stupid free will. So, my task right now is to watch my players carefully for signs of delight, and to exploit these weaknesses in their psyche to… well, give them more delight. I am never going to pass the Evil DM exam at this rate.I’ve also been considering several reward systems for good roleplaying or teamwork. One idea was to use Fortune Cards as a reward. Another is to give out story awards like I saw used at the Living Forgotten Realms events at DDXP. It’s been my experience that it doesn’t take much to light a little fire in a player’s heart. Or maybe I’m just extra flammable. We’ll have to see if my group is.
- Loot, Or Lack Thereof
One of my players made a point to remind me that they hadn’t gotten any loot yet. I’d forgotten about it entirely, what with my head being firmly up my precious story’s ass. In the interim, I came up with nifty Weapons O’ Light for them to use, the powers of which may scale with the players’ level. I don’t think this is enough. It’s a weird state of affairs when everybody has weapons made of pure light and I’m worried nobody is going to feel special. I need flavor for these items. I want offbeat things that make this story belong to the players. I used to do this with magic items all the time. It’s harder to come up with them, for some reason. - I Prefer Rolling My Own
I’m starting to think I might be a masochist, or an egomaniac, or both. I have heaping mountains of sourcebooks and articles and other pre-made materials to choose from, but I want to come up with something brand new 99 times out of 100. I tend to prejudge pre-made material as a whole as “boring”, and I think this attitude needs to change. I know an awful lot of very bright people with excellent ideas waiting to be appropriated for the good of all playerkind. And it’s not as if I am a neverending fountain of The Best Ideas. If I hadn’t been introduced to the concept of reskinning, I shudder to think how combat might have gone these last few sessions. I think this problem stems from a few times in a previous campaign where our DM decided to drop in a pre-made module and we all couldn’t wait for it to be over. I also need to remember another campaign we were in, made completely from scratch, that was far worse. This is not really helping my anxiety. - 4 x 2 x 7 x 1
The “fast and loose” approach I’ve been taking the last couple of sessions has rained cosmic destruction upon the delicate 5×5 plot diagram I’d made in the infancy of this campaign. I’m having trouble figuring out how to guide them where they “should” go without chasing them around with a horde of cement zombies. I tried to lay clues for them in our last adventure, but they didn’t take the bait. Upon complaining about this, the Internets graced me with the Three Clue Rule and the knowledge that players are neither master detectives nor inside my brain. I’m not going to feel so bad about gentle use of the Clue Bat or letting Leopold, the Dancing Plot Point earn his keep. I’m going to try sprinkling a little more structure into our game, and hopefully it’ll go somewhere. I think the trick is not to care exactly where, as long as you are still tracking it via DM plot-satellite.
I’m certain that, as long as I am a Dungeon Master, I will always have a bunch of bullet points in my head. There’s an old saying we have in karate. I can’t remember it, so it is possible that I will not have all my teeth this time next week. What I do remember is that it describes the search for perfection of one’s character as neverending; as being in a boat atop an ever-rising sea; as playing Pac-Man and never splitting the screen. So too shall I approach the mastery of my dungeon.
In the end, there is only one truth: don’t use dry-erase markers on a battlemat.
Photo Credit
Dealing the Wildcards
In past columns I have talked about how DMs are the best friends of both players and adventure designers. The DMs possess the power and the means to help the players have fun, while at the same time making the adventure designers look good. (And believe me, we need all the help we can get!) In subsequent columns I plan to talk about how DMs can adjust pre-made adventures to fit their players’ needs and expectations while still remaining true to the story. However, before I get there, I want to talk about some steps adventure designers can take to make life easier for the DMs. In particular, this column will discuss what I call the “wildcard.” In card games, especially poker, a wildcard is a card that can be used by the player to represent anything. The same versatility offered by a wildcard to a poker hand can make an RPG session awesome.
Wildcards: What and How?
I started thinking about wildcards in RPGs because I dislike using a DM screen. Bear with me, this will get somewhere. Also I prefer to roll in the open where players can see the results. Because I do not want to fudge die rolls and have no screen to hide behind, I needed another way as a DM to tailor the play experience without ruining that experience with obvious fudging. I don’t like to kill characters, but I also let the dice fall where they may. However, I always have the fun of the players in mind. I am willing to take the adventure in any direction, be it story-wise or combat-wise, if I think the players might have a better time.
Since I don’t want to fudge die rolls, and I don’t want the game to be cheapened with obvious stunts like deus ex machina or the like, I had to come up with tools that I could use as the DM to influence the game more subtly. I learned about wildcards in the first D&D adventure I ever ran, way back when I was just a wee lad. (People who know me can insert the short jokes here.) I was too young and inexperienced to be able to put a name to it and recognize it for what it was, but I was using a wildcard nonetheless. That adventure was The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, and the wildcard was a wily assassin named Ned Shakeshaft. For those young’uns who don’t remember that adventure, the PCs are investigating a supposedly haunted house, and they find Mr. Shakeshaft tied up in one of the rooms. He knows how to use a sword, so the PCs might welcome him into their group to help with the investigations. Of course Ned is a bad guy, and he turns on the PCs at some point.
Ned is the perfect example of a wildcard that a DM has in his proverbial game-mastering poker hand. If an adventure is too easy and the players are getting bored, Ned can attack the PCs at the worst possible moment for them, making the adventure more challenging for the PCs and exciting for the players. If the PCs are having a rough go of it and the players are getting frustrated, Ned can continue to fight on their side, biding his time. [Read the rest of this article]
Interview with PAX East Champion Dungeon Master, Matt Brenner
Photo by Chris Tulach
In early March of 2011, at the PAX East gaming conference, Wizards of the Coast sponsored the second annual PAX East Dungeon Master’s Challenge. Three weeks earlier, those who signed up received their instructions for the competition. Each of them would be required to bring a unique level 8 adventure with a dragon as the main antagonist along with all of the tools, props, and pre-generated characters needed to run the game. Dave Chalker (who won last year), Tracy Hurley, and I all joined in a group of perhaps fifteen dungeon masters for the competition.
The players of each adventure scored the competition based on the following criteria:
- Presentation
- Story
- Challenges
- Characters
- Fun Factor
In the end Matt Brenner took away the prize and title as Champion Dungeon Master.
When I found out that I hadn’t even been in the top three winning dungeon masters, I was, of course, filled with a seething hatred and burning rage capable of sucking the entire convention center into the great black hole now left in my heart. Knowing, however, that I was in the very good company of Dave and Tracy, however, made it a little easier.
I could have held on to that seething rage but such rage benefits no one. Instead of exploding like a Peter Petrelli atom bomb, I decided to follow Sylar’s route. I would find this dungeon master, slice open his skull, and draw his champion DM powers out for myself.
OK, that’s not exactly true. Instead I would find this champion DM and interview him for all of us to learn from his background and his experience. What I found was a dungeon master who truly went over the top to build his award winning game.
Now let’s sit back and learn what Matt Brenner has to say about his gaming background and what he did to build his champion adventure. [Read the rest of this article]
The Eighth Wheel
It’s funny how things never develop how you expected. When I decided to start running a D&D game after going to DDXP this year, I was reasonably certain things would never get off the ground. I knew a couple people might be interested, but with schedules being what they are (especially with several parents in the mix, myself included), I wasn’t sure the stars would align sufficiently to get the first session of the ground – much less a multi-year-spanning campaign like we used to run back in the day.
As it turns out, I have no problems with finding players for my group. Quite the opposite, actually.
And Then There Were X + 1 (REPEAT)
We started out with five. A friend from work and his wife, who I’d played with for years before. Two more friends from work, and a guy I used to work with. There’s a theme here. We played our first session, it was rad. Everybody was excited. Then, one day, we talked about it at lunch with one of the new guys at work. (Theme, remember?) As I was riding the high off not crashing and burning through the first session, I asked him if he wanted to play with us. The invitation was genuine, but I was honestly surprised he said yes. Usually, people just sort of laugh nervously and politely decline. (Maybe I shouldn’t talk about my characters right out of the gate?) One of my players was with me at lunch, and she was very happy about this new development. I was equally happy. He was cool.
I was a little surprised at the response when I got back and asked the rest of my players if it was cool if we had a new member. Everybody thought the new guy was great, but there were a few reservations about the group getting too big. Worries that there would be too many scheduling conflicts. Concerns that scheduling would become more difficult. My last group was pretty big (8? 9? I forget…), and we all seemed to get by, so this was a little bewildering. The invite was already out, so I decided just to see how it went. It went well.
Two days later, one of my players tells me her brother (who had expressed interest in playing, but had scheduling conflicts), was no longer under said scheduling conflicts and wanted to play. The little monkey running the controls in my brain began pacing around anxiously. The screaming was nigh. So, I did what any noob would, and immediately consulted the Internet. Fortunately, in my case, that meant IMing Dave The Game. (Who, as we all know, is the living embodiment of the Internet.) He gave me the following subtle and nuanced advice:
Hard limit of 6 players. Any more than that and they will hate playing and you will hate running it.
Not understanding Dave’s cryptic message, I then consulted Josh and Eric, two of my former DM’s. I figured, they used to run our giant group. They will know. 6 seemed a good number, they said, if all your players are quiet and organized and well-behaved. I wasn’t exactly sure if my group qualified. Most were reasonably reserved, but we’d only played twice. I couldn’t base it off previous experience because, well, I was one of several forces of chaos in our old group. It was fun chaos, but I cannot count the number of times I had a great idea and saw the “aneurism” expression cross my DM’s face – and these were DM’s with years of experience. Suddenly, I realized the hidden cost of my antics, and I became afraid – that lurking somewhere at my table, someone had a big barrel of antics a-brewin’.
Studio 5d4
I asked the Internet what to do, and he recommended something that seemed a little strange – namely, a waiting list. That seemed kind of elitist, but upon closer inspection it made more sense. The regular players have a guaranteed seat – but if someone can’t make it, the next person on the waiting list gets called to make a guest appearance with a pregenerated PC. It’s a way to let some different people play, and a band-aid for those times when you’re one player down. I’d already decided to run player absence in my campaign as if that character vanished and/or took the day off, so this fit well – at least on paper.
As to whether or not it worked in practice – well, unfortunately I still had to frustrate yet another work friend (there are apparently legions) who wanted to play. He had a night off from his regularly scheduled WoW raiding on account of his guild getting their drink on IRL in another state for St. Patrick’s day, and wanted to make a guest appearance. I told him no, because I had 6, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle another. I still feel bad about it. I probably could have handled it, but I am not very practiced at saying “no” to people in general, much less when it’s regarding something I would love to share with them. I still don’t know if I made the right call, but I suppose at least I made a call.
Upon A Troubled Brow
I’ve been trying to run this group as a democracy. I’ve been in groups where the DM gets to decide everything, and it works sometimes but there’s a lot of potential for things to get weird and unpleasant. I didn’t care for it. Even with this in mind, though, I’ve tried to take point on putting everything together from scheduling to location to getting group communication going and putting the adventures together and answering player questions. It had not occurred to me until now that, even a group run by all its players still requires leadership – and the DM, for better or worse, is likely to have the job.
These clothes do not fit comfortably yet.
It is so damned easy to get caught up in trying to make everyone happy right now, even with a very low level of drama. (Hooray for low self-esteem!) I take my role as DM to be the guy who makes it possible for everybody to have an evening of fun. (I took it down a couple notches from “the guy who makes everyone have fun”. My you’re-going-to-give-yourself-an-ulcer filter doesn’t trigger often, but I’m happy when it does!) I don’t know specifically what I’m worried about. Maybe that everyone will be bored and frustrated and never want to play again. That I’m going to alienate all my friends who aren’t allowed to play and be considered a thunderous turbo-douche for the rest of my natural life. That WotC will send a representative to my house to repossess all my D&D sourcebooks and give me a season pass to a sporting event because I can no longer be a nerd. Yes, that about sums it up.
I have good players, though. One of them, when I expressed such concerns to her, replied simply with “We’re your friends! That won’t happen.”
Oh yeah. So, I guess I’m back to just trying my best to put together something exciting and simply enjoying a night with friends. Doesn’t make a very interesting story, but I’d much rather have expectations I can live with.
Photo Credit
Agents of the Un-Kindgom: The Nullmen
“They came into town after the alpha dogs had torn it apart. They were dressed in black trenchcoats and they all wore these iron masks — totally smooth, no features at all — and they interrogated the survivors. When I say interrogated, I guess that’s what it would have to be, because they didn’t speak. There were no words, just… one of them approached you, pulled you close to its mask…and your mind started flooding with shame, with anxiety, with fear, and guilt…before you knew it you were revealing everything you know about anything. I could hear myself babbling and bawling like a baby, but I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop. Once they got the person they had come for, they dragged him out of town and left us survivors here, weak, exhausted, and empty.
“Despite all that happened, it’s getting difficult to remember. If you had stopped by tomorrow, I don’t know if I could tell you anything. That’s what is truly terrifying. They have the power to attack us, to kill us and take our people, but also the power to make us forget what they’ve done. Maybe they’ve done this to our town a hundred times! And each time we forget, until they come in and take another soul, and we forget that person too. I can’t tell you who they took the other day.
“Worse yet, what if they are raiding our village and turning those taken into them? The people in the iron masks, were they once like you and me? What do they do with those they take? What…what…
“What were we talking about again?” [Read the rest of this article]
So You Want to Write RPGs?
I listen to all sorts of gaming podcasts and read all sorts of gaming blogs. So when I heard that my friend and game-design and OP-admin colleague Teos Abadia was going to be a guest on a new gaming podcast called Going Last, I checked it out. I took a shine to it right away, because it gave good information that interested me, but the two hosts Ian and Justin did not take themselves too seriously.
I dropped Teos a note saying that I enjoyed his talk on the podcast, as well as the podcast in general, and before long I had traded a couple of emails with the Going Last guys, and they wondered if I wanted to talk to them about freelancing and organized-play campaigns. Sure, no problem.
My chat with them was recorded and released earlier this week, and one of the questions they asked me is one that I get asked quite frequently. Because a concise and coherent answer is not something I am known for, I wanted to take the time to write a more measured and clear answer.
How Does One Become an RPG Freelancer?
When I get asked this question, I feel like I just got stupid-drunk, climbed a steep hill, fell off the cliff at the top, somehow landed on my feet, and then got asked, “Hey, since you were just up there on that hill, can you let me know how to get down?” I sort of remember the trip, but I don’t quite know how I got from point A to point B.
Some of the answers and advice I give here, I gave for the podcast. Others were things that I did not get to, or did not think of in time to answer coherently. It is also important to note that I can only speak from my own experiences—as well as the experiences of those who I have talked to about this topic. There is no single right path to regular freelancing or organized-play work, but I think there are strategies and considerations that are common to many paths. [Read the rest of this article]
Mage: The Ascension Job
It’s no secret that I’ve been a bit Leverage RPG crazy for the past few months- in many ways, it’s a system that just flat out “clicked” with me as soon as I played it. One of the outcroppings of that is my desire to hack it into other settings. I’m a huge fan of modern settings, and while Leverage RPG scratches that itch, there’s lots of room for modern games beyond heists and capers. Enter my early ideas about combining it with Mage: The Ascension, to which I (and as I discovered recently, many other gamers) have very fond memories of.
With two sessions under my belt, with completely different players each time, I am convinced that this is a combination that works. In fact, one player of mine who was a big Mage fan described it as “note perfect.” Here now then, is my combination of Mage: The Ascension and the Leverage RPG. You will need both books for this hack to work, and prior understanding of both. [Read the rest of this article]
Chatty’s PaxEast Highlights: 3 days of Fun Among Friends
Yes, this site is run by insane people, but IT WORKS!
Mere days after the conclusion of the second PaxEast gathering of gaming geeks, I still struggle to reinsert myself in that pre-formed vessel that we call “normal life” (for a given value of normal).
As you may know, Dave and I obtained Media (and Speaker) passes for the event so why not meet the requirements of “talking about the show” by writing about the highlights of the time I spent there?
Thursday night:
After a day-long ride from frigid, stormy Montreal we made our way to the Intercontinental Hotel in South Boston. I had organized an evening of board game in the hotel lobby and, like last year, it was an instant hit.
Here are some of the games I played or recognized:
I ended the night talking to Tavis Allison (long time RPG Freelancer and blogger at of The Mule Abides) where we remade the RPG world from both ends of the Old/New school spectrum. The night was a blast and I already knew I’d spend too little time sleeping.
Friday: Convention Center, Keynote, Q&A and Showroom
The Premise was just plain gigantic and perfect. The Boston Convention Center is light years beyond the one we were last year. I wished there were nearer food outlets, but we made do.
The keynote, by game designer Jane MacGonigal was one of those life changing mind-rewiring events. My mind is abuzz with new game ideas that have real-life, practical applications.
We even broke a world record playing a 5000 players game of massive multi-player thumb wrestling , that was surreal… and plaguetastic!
The following Q & A with Mike and Jerry was icing on the cake, with a roomful of geeks sending waves of admiration, adoration and shameless gushing (and empty calories) towards our Maitre’d.
I mean, what the hell is Irn Bru?
PM: I don’t care if it’s all downhill from here, this was beyond awesome.
We walked the floors of the convention center after and realized just how immense it really was. And there was stuff to do everywhere. As it will likely grow from year to year, PaxEast will be one of those monster events you will never tame, experiencing only a tiny slice of it at every year, much like Gen Con.
I also made a quick tour of the exhibit floor with Yan and PM and we all agreed that it was way better than last year. Yes, there were some very long lines, but we managed to see some very cool stuff.
Friday: Return of the “Be your own Hero” (e)book
During my visit of the expo all, I made my way to the thin slice reserved for indie game developers and met with Neil from Australia-based Tin Man Games. They showed us their iOS-based Adventure gamebook applications. I hope to get a copy in the next few weeks and put up a review but suffice it to say that the 10 year old boy in me was filled with nostalgia and wonder at the sight of that beautiful game.
Highlights:
- Each game has roughly 8 times the number of entries than the 1980′s UK books pioneered by Steve Jackson (no, not that one) and Ian Livingston
- The game has an integrated character sheet that tracks stats, equipment and knowledge acquired.
- Built-in dice roller.
- Gorgeous artwork and a huge game world and accompanying ever updating gazetteer.
Plans are in place to port the game to Android and possibly the PC in the near future.
Friday: It all makes Sense Steve!
I teamed up with Dave and we interviewed Steve Jackson (yes, that one) and Phil Reed about the upcoming releases for SJ Games. Two things stood out for us:
- Ogre Boxed set: A large box set with map tiles, 3D double-sided Ogres and superstructures. The increase in size of the Hex map and the beautiful art of the playing pieces made me want to own yet another version of that game.
- Axe Cop Munchkin…
(Record scratching sound….)
Yes you read that right, Axe Cop, where a cop kills bad guys with his axe and a flute cop gets turned into a gun dinosaur and Unibaby has a horn that makes him super smart and evil Santa turns into…
Yet this addition to the increasingly out of control line of games now makes EVERYTHING make perfect sense… A Dutch accented level 6 Ninja Psionic Thief with a +4 Chainsword and a Cape of Invincibility? Perfectly logical.
This is a refreshing take on a franchise I found was getting a little on the stale side.
Friday: Panel
You can follow the story of it just here (and even listen to it). Suffice it to say that we went from nervous, to terrified, to engrossed, to relieved, to satisfied. 
Friday: Fiasco!
I will never again try to describe a full Fiasco game but here’s the elevator pitch.
“A lesbian couple of Russian Spies decide to wreck vengeance on the small scientific community of McMurdoch Antarctica. They plan to poison everyone with a secret drug that turns people into zombies after death. As the infection spreads, the sole spy survivor leaves on board a Russian trawler, leaving undead ex-lovers and collaborators behind. The station, then the whole world, falls to a Zombie Apocalypse. She dies in the “loving” embrace of her zombified ex-girlfriend, on the front lines of a loosing war to save the fatherland”
I LOVE this game beyond belief. I was officially dubbed the “Craziest player ever” when I had my character say, while standing beside a 55 gallon barrel of urine : “time to remove that catheter Dr. Johnson”
Saturday: RPG day!
Saturday was all about RPGs… I played about 9 hours of them!
Dave ran us through his homebrewed hack of Mage the Ascension using the Leverage ruleset. It was awesome to play modern time reality-bending wizards with such a clean set of simple, yet rich rules. We invaded a tacky run down casino held by a Frank Sinatresque Vampire and brought the whole thing down (as well as one player’s clothes).
Dave (Playing our patron): Nice job…. Hey, what happened to your pants?
End Credits.
Made of win if you ask me.
Mike Shea (of Sly Flourish fame) ran us through a hyper rapid Gamma World adventure where we made characters (I was Le Grey Pupa, Cockroach Giant) and had 4 combat encounters in less than 2 hours. Quite a feat and quite an enjoyable game. I’m slowly warming up to Gamma World. I’m not quite sold but I could be after a few more games with GMs as awesome as Mike was.
My last RPG of the day was a Mouse Guard game with some Twitter friends I made over the last year. The game was my classic “Beavers and Bandit” adventure and it was beyond fun.
My highlight:
During an argument between the PCs and members of the city’s organized crime who wanted them to butt out of their business, I had scripted a Feint argument. I had to go for the throat of the opposing team…
Crimelord (to ex-con mouse Guard): So, your mom still lives around here ya know? She’s doin’ real good, in fact Moe over there just had tea with her last week, such a sweet lady huh Moe? Nice to know she’s still so healthy for an old broad like her…
Player (eyes and nostrils flaring): You did NOT just go there!
WIN!
The whole game was awesome but this exchange is why I GM!
Sunday: Gifts and goodbyes
On Sunday, after a stupidly short night (thanks to spring time and a late late Magic the Gathering game), I did a rapid last tour of the exhibit hall, bought gifts for my family:
- Stone Age for Alex
- Ascension for Nico
- A Skele-Pirate vs Skele-Ninja T-shirt for Rory
- Dixit 2 Extension for Rory
I then said my goodbyes to the awesome people I met and those I had seen again for a few short days. I already look forward to seeing them again in a few short months.
I left Pax with the certitude I’d be there next year. Better prepared… ready for even more fun.
A special thanks
I got to meet some very special fans this year. It was the first time that people stepped up to me and shared, in their own words, their appreciation for my work. While I have not yet mastered the way to gracefully accept praise, especially from shy people, please know that I was truly touched. Your nice words and courage strengthened my resolve to continue doing such cools things in our little corner of geekdom.
For those who could not quite work up the courage, I noticed some of you, know that there’s always next year or Gen Con, I’ll be happy to spend a few minutes talking to you.
Thanks again! All of you.
By The Seat Of My Omnipotent Pants
A Metaphor
This past week’s D&D session was something of an experiment for me. As I mentioned last week, I procrastinated a bit too much. By that, I mean that by about 2 hours to game time, I had managed to be indecisive enough to know several major plot points – just not the specifics or the order in which they would appear. Not having any combat encounters worked out turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I had also invited a new player to the group over lunch that day. At this point, I was more than slightly worried the session was going to be a disaster and that we would wind up playing Snorta! for half the evening.
With the minutes ticking away, I called upon several old friends (and previous DMs of mine), Dante and Kanati, half to ask for advice and half simply just to have someone to tell “haha I’m screwed oh God”. Both told me something that sort of shocked me a little. In the campaigns I’d been in with them, they’d winged it a lot more than I’d ever imagined. “I used to just throw a bunch of bad guys at you and throw more at you if you were winning too easily, and fudge dice rolls if you were dying.” “Most of the human enemies you ever fought were just monsters I renamed.” I could feal fake reality crumbling about me, but yet somewhere in the crumbles there were nuggets of hope. And so, not really having a large amount of options left, I made a decision to leave the plot nice and loose (and the encounters looser.) At this point, I was becoming convinced that this was going to be so bad as to turn my new player off of gaming forevermore, sending him on the dark road to philately or something equally destructive to the soul.
How did it turn out? Well, to be honest, it turned out better than when I’d try to put everything on rails. I haven’t quite figured out exactly what that means yet. [Read the rest of this article]
